Festival Celebrates Rhythm And Blues

FREE TIME

KISSIMMEE -- Kissimmee Lakefront Park will be filled with ethnic music, culture and food Sunday during the sixth annual Festival of Rhythm and Blues.

The festival, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., also will feature the unveiling of a bronze statue of Mary McLeod Bethune.

The statue is traveling through the state and will be permanently placed in the gardens of Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach in October.

"This is the largest African-American festival in Central Florida," said Marie Jones, founder of the Kissimmee/Osceola County Chamber of Commerce's Black Business Council, which is producing the free event.

Scheduled to perform are the Walt Disney World Jazz Combo, Big Joe Turner and his Memphis Blues Caravan, M.O.N., or Men of Note, and Sisaundra Lewis and the Sounds of Soul.

"M.O.N. sing tunes from the Spinners and the Temptations along with their own original music. They are very dynamic, real crowd-pleasers," Jones said. "Sisaundra Lewis has a great range. She can perform songs from Whitney Houston to Patti Labelle."

"We want to bring the community together, and provide a beautiful family day," Jones said. "A great mix of all kinds of people comes to the festival."

She said last year 18,000 people attended.

"People from other states call the chamber to ask if we are holding the festival," Jones said.

Bethune was active in the National Child Welfare Commission, the National Coalition for Homebuilding and Home Ownership and the National Association of Colored Women and won a Thomas Jefferson award for leadership.

"She was a good friend of Eleanor Roosevelt's when her husband was president," Jones said.

For information about the festival, call the Kissimmee/Osceola County Chamber of Commerce at 407-847-3174.